Wednesday, 2 March 2011

Outsider art: George Plumb's Bottle Castle

Who says you need an art degree or a degree in architecture to make a really amazing thing?

This is one of my first post's on the inspiration that is 'outsider art'.

In 1962, George Plumb, a retired carpenter, bought a one acre site in Duncan (Canada). He had decided to build a Castle and Taj Mahal out of bottles. A donation of 3,000 bottles from a local dairy got him started. He added soft-drink, whiskey, wine, and antique bottles (even a few television sets) to the outsides of his buildings.

Five thousand bottles went into the Bottle Castle (also known as the Glass Castle) which was a small five-room house completed in 1963.

Over the years, he used 200,000 bottles. Plumb collected bottles from local industries and others were donated by neighbors and visitors. The structures around the main building included a Leaning Tower of Pisa, a well and a giant Coke bottle – all made with bottles and cement. Around the buildings were animals sculptures, some made from concrete and others carved in stone. In the gardens, there were paths between low walls that led past flower beds to a small waterfall, water lily and fish ponds, a totem pole and a small studio.

The building & sculptures were bulldozed in the 1990's for highway expansion.